


when i get older, losing my hair

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: cliche_bingo, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-26
Updated: 2009-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:27:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For about three weeks of every year, the heat of a Lantean summer is matched by a salt-laden humidity that leaves Rodney feeling lazy and slow during the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when i get older, losing my hair

**Author's Note:**

> A little 'thank you' present for dogeared! Many thanks to trinityofone for betaing. Written for cliche_bingo for the prompt 'When I'm 64: Futurefic.'

For about three weeks of every year, the heat of a Lantean summer is matched by a salt-laden humidity that leaves Rodney feeling lazy and slow during the day and irritable and restless at night. He opens the windows each evening before they sleep, the stained glass refracting light deep into the corners of their bedroom; places fans at optimum positions to encourage the sluggish air to move; chills his pyjamas inside the fridge where John keeps his beer; and still every night, after clambering onto the bed and propping his bad knee up on a pillow, has to spend at least ten minutes complaining about the Ancients and their shoddily-constructed air conditioning systems.

"It's not that I miss Siberia," he says, staring up at the ceiling, "because I really, really don't. I mean, thirty-five years later and I still sometimes have flashbacks to what it was like being in such close proximity to Dmitri Alekseev's socks for eleven straight months. But oh god, snow. _Snow_. Arctic winds. Ice. Dry air. Not having to change my t-shirt every few hours because the pit stains are so large they—"

"Thirty years on," John mumbles into his pillow, "and the romance ain't dead."

Rodney laces his fingers together and rests his hands on his stomach. "Says the man who, on the _very day_ that that Elassian high priest married us, got so drunk with Ronon that he thought it would be a great idea to teach Torren how to fart the American national anthem."

"Rodney," John says, turning his head and squinting at him through half-closed eyes, "we didn't even know that guy'd married us until we went back next year and they gave us that ceremonial anniversary fruit basket."

"That," Rodney sniffs, "is hardly the point. The ability to remember these kinds of dates is one of the cornerstones of a healthy, lasting relationship."

"Yeah, if you're Ronon and you're all, you know..." John lifts one hand off the bed and waggles it in an indeterminate manner which Rodney interprets to mean _lovey-dovey_ and _emotionally whatever_ and _able to remember Jennifer's birthday without prompting_. "Our, you know, our _thing_ started with that Geldarian rot-gut and its cornerstones are, like, beer and blow-jobs."

"I was totally a cheap date," Rodney agrees happily. He has fond memories of all the more spontaneous, bendy things they'd gotten up to when they'd been younger—things that Rodney's bum knee and the objections John's back had raised to flying idiotic missions at the age of fifty-five have put paid to—though that doesn't mean he hasn't developed a strong affection for how things are between them now, slower and more gentle and full of whispered care.

"Don't think the past tense applies, Rodney," John says. He sounds sleepy, and when John rolls onto his back, Rodney can see how his eyelids have drooped closed again and the fine lines around his eyes have smoothed out.

"Ah," Rodney says, wriggling down next to John and closing his own eyes. "The romance may be gone, but see how the rapier wit of John Sheppard remains unblemished through the years! A lesson for us all."

"Har har har," John mumbles. "Go sleep."

"Oh, go sleep your face," Rodney says—which may not be one of his better come-backs, but he's warm and he's tired and his knee aches; he has John's arm slung over his waist and John's still-thick, white hair tickling his nose, and the sound of the ocean to lull him to sleep. He's happy; there are far worse ways to have spent thirty years.


End file.
